Intel Sandy Bridge-E Review - Core i7-3960X and X79 Chipset Tested

Sandy Bridge-E is just what you expect

Introduction

It has been more than three years since Intel released the first Core i7 processor built around the Nehalem CPU architecture along with the X58 chipset. It quickly became the platform of choice for the enthusiast market (gamers and overclockers), and remained in that role even as the world of processors evolved around it with the release of Westmere and Sandy Bridge. Yes, we have been big supporters of the Sandy Bridge Core i7 parts for some time as the "new" platform of choice for gamers, but part of us always fondly remembered the days of Nehalem and X58.

Well, Intel shared the sentimentl and this holiday they are officially unveiling the Sandy Bridge-E platform and the X79 chipset. The "E" stands for enthusiast in this case and you'll find that many of the same decisions and patterns apply from the Nehalem release to this one. Nehalem and X58 was really meant as a workstation design but the performance and features were so good that Intel wanted to offer it to the high-end consumer as well. Sandy Bridge-E is the same thing - this design is clearly built for the high-profit areas of computing including workstation and servers but those that want the best available technology will find it pretty damn attractive as well.

The answer might surprise you, but truthfully not a whole lot has changed. In fact, from a purely architectural stand point (when looking at the x86 processor cores), Sandy Bridge-E looks essentially identical to the cores found in currently available Sandy Bridge CPUs. You will see the same benefits of the additional AVX instruction set in applications that take advantage of it, a shared L3 cache that exists between all of the cores for data coherency and the ring bus introduced with Sandy Bridge is still there to move data between the cores, cache and uncore sections of the die.

Turbo Boost technology makes a return here as well with the updated 2.0 version in full effect - there are more steppings in scalability on this part than on the Nehalem or Westmere CPUs.

With that said, there are some important changes to take note of, starting with the absence of any and all Sandy Bridge aspects related to graphics and multimedia processing. The Sandy Bridge-E Core i7-39xx and i7-38xx parts will not have processor graphics of any kind on them, and while this isn't a big deal for the targeted users of high-end hardware like this, there is one drawback. Along with the GPU portion, the QuickSync technology is also absent from the design as it was dependent on the Intel HD Graphics technology for some of its processing. If you were a fan, as we were, of the QuickSync media transcoding applications that worked impressively fast, then you should be prepared to live without it again if you buy a SNB-E processor. Still, with 6-cores and 12-threads of processing, the Core i7-3960X should be able to handle media transcoding fairly well as we demonstrate in our benchmark testing.

The Sandy Bridge-E Die

A significant portion of the processor die is relegated to communication with the 40 lanes of PCI Express supported by Sandy Bridge-E. This is a VAST improvement over the current Sandy Bridge parts that only support 16 lanes. While PCI Express 3.0 support is not yet official on the SNB-E CPUs, all of the motherboard vendors we have talked to are comfortable with saying the combination of the new CPUs and X79 motherboards will run that communication protocol properly when supported cards are released in 2012. For whatever reason, Intel has decided to not validate the PCIe 3.0 capability of the processor directly and instead claims that it "believes that some PCIe devices may be able to achieve the 8GT/s PCIe transfer rate on X79". So...uh, there.

As all of the motherboard designs have shown you over the last several months, Sandy Bridge-E also moves from a dual-channel memory controller to a much higher bandwidth quad-channel memory controller. Theoretical memory bandwidth moves up to 51.2 GB/s and while some very specific applications will see (and take advantage of) this change, most consumer applications and games won't come close to seeing a 2x increase in performance. Still, those that complained about moving from a three-channel memory controller on Nehalem to the dual-channel on Sandy Bridge will be pleased to see a move forward in this area.

This, of course, means a new collection of memory module kits from Corsair and the like are in order. To take full advantage of your processor's performance, you are going to need to populate all four of those memory channels. We have already seen a few sets from Corsair that target the SNB-E buyer. Another good side effect of four memory channels is that you will (by default) have more memory in your system overall. Even if you go down to 2GB modules for each channel we are talking about an 8GB configuration and more likely a 16GB total system memory option for users that go with still very cost efficient 4GB DIMMs.

One interesting thing to note from looking at the die shot above is that there are two cores disabled on SNB-E. Those cores will surely be enabled on upcoming Xeon processors but I am still confused as to why Intel chose to keep them disabled completely. I understand that with 8 cores they weren't likely to be able to run at higher clock speeds than current Sandy Bridge processors, but offering a SKU that was 8-cores/16-threads deep at lower clock speeds could have been for consumers that really use heavily-threaded applications. As it stands now, Intel only has plans for 6-core and 4-core SNB-E processors.

Shared L3 cache size has also been increased up to a staggering 15MB on the Core i7-3960X flagship and 12MB on the Core i7-3930K. To put that in perspective, the current Core i7-2600K Sandy Bride processor and Core i7 Nehalem parts sport 8MB of L3 cache. From the die image we can gather that the Core i7-3960X is actually using all of the available cache size and any upcoming Xeons with 8-cores will have the same amount.

The new Sandy Bridge-E processors are larger than previous Nehalem or Sandy Bridge CPUs as inferred from the requirement of the new LGA2011 socket. The CPU die itself is built on the same 32nm process technology as the current generation Sandy Bridge and consists of 2.27 billion transistors in the form of a nearly square 434.72 mm2 die.

They could use this transistors for other matters,for example for cache modules, but they don't use these space for anything.With one difference This architecture is similar to Celeron processors in previous Intel designs. In this arrangement cores are deactivated instead of caches modules.Cores is disabled instead of CPU When any of them defected in production process in the factory.

Fell a little flat with the render tests. Could you please include something a little more contemporary eg. Cinebench 11.5 please? After all, this is going to be one of the target demographics for the processor.

Edit: Especially need an overclocked CB score. That's what people will be doing with them.

I realize that this 3960X is top dog when it comes to desktop CPUs, but I can't help it to feel a bit sad when I know there's two extra cores with an extra 5MB of cache disabled, just sitting there, doing nothing.

And it's not like it's just a certain feature that's disabled, it's two fully hyperthreaded cores! That's like a really good extra dual core CPU that's gone dark, something like an unlocked Sandy Bridge 2100K (non existant, but you get the point). It takes "dark silicon" to the next level.

Is this to preserve a certain clockspeed - power envelope ratio or is this just because there's virtually no competition in this segment anymore? Is it that much cheaper to have just one die for desktop/worstation/server?

Do I get to blame AMD for ruining my life all over again? (hint: it's a joke)

How are the single core on Blender better?? The new sb-e is the fastest single thread on the chart with 76.13 sec. Were you looking at it backwards. You may also look into using the new cycles render instead of the old Blender, as it will be the new standard in Blender 2.62 comming December.

The same reason we didn't "slam" $1000 CPUs for the decade they have continued to be released. They aren't meant for single core workloads and excel really only in the outlier cases of heavy threaded workloads and the like.

No, this CPU isn't for most, it isn't even likely for MANY people, but the fact that it is there is good for the market to be pushed forward.

I don't remember anyone complaining when the Core i7-980X launched...?

wrong amd cpu to put against the i7 e3960x,you should be revisiting just the e3960x vs the opteron 6282se,that is the same priced cpu to go against the 3960,price for price the
3820 will be a better counter part to the 8150 or the

The twin 580's sound awesome. I'd stick with a Sandy Bridge 2500K and an ASUS P867WS Revolution MoBo. You are sure not going to bottleneck with that (if you are going with just one card then go with the P8P67 PRO. Two 580's are going to draw a lot of power. 850W plus (preferably plus).

I think Ryan did a good job explaining the subtle differences between the SB and SB-E. Moreover, with AMD's lackluster Bulldozer turnout and SB-Original not offering more than 4 cores, this CPU is now the premier CPU on the consumer planet. Look, if you want TOP-end power for a while- you're not going to find it anywhere else ...

They did that already (and other sites too), 2500K and 2600K vs. Bulldozer, it lost there too.

The idea of the article here is to compare the best offerings from the main (only?) two competitors on the market. When we're in this segment, we're interested about performance more and less about the price. We don't really care about performance/monetary unit, we just want the best there is, period.

Why does the i5 2500K perform better then the i7 2600k on so many of these tests am I missing something. Is there other reasons that I would spend $100 more one a CPU not to mention would the 2700K be worth the $30 more than the 2600K. I was waiting for the SB-e processor but I just cant justify the price/performance BIGTIME FAIL on Intel, just wasted my time waiting for a product that barely outperforms I7 990X.

LGA2011 is completely different than LGA1155 (AKA I7-2600 you inquired about).

Seems a lot of people are mad about this...Ryan has said it like 10 times - this is not for most of "us." This is for a small market of power users, not the people that want the best frame rates on Battlefield 3.

First, as to why the 2500K might outperform the 2600K in some select instances: because a four-threaded app has 4 dedicated cores on the 2500K and though there ARE 4 dedicated cores on the 2600K, it is possible that the OS doesn't put each thread on its own core and instead you see a bit of HyperThreading i the mix, which isn't nearly as efficient as single core computing. That being said, usually the OS figures this out pretty quickly, so differences are actually minimal.

As for the 2700K - I would actually recommend it over the 2600K if that was your choice before, yes.

Thanks for your response Ryan, if I hear you right the I5 doesn't have HT. so turning off HT one the 2600K or 2700K may improve some of the non-multi-threaded reliant applications. As for your suggesting the 2600K over the 2700K for the $22 difference would I be getting a sightly higher binned chip with better TDP, clock speed, etc.. I guess I am know wounding id the 2500K is the right choice @ more than $100 less( I believe I heard you guys say as much on the Podcast) do I loose any else then HT with the 2500K.

So question?? If you want the fastest gaming pc or just the fastest system go with 3960x and dont wate for ive?? Asus rampage iiii 32gb or 16gb and keep your graphics top of the line. Money is not a problem but ive bridge whats the deal? not going to be all arround better than 3690x dont want to upgrade again i am currently running 990x asus rampage iii formula three gtx 580's Would like to here a really good breakdown on sandy-e vs ivy??? Thanks watch the show allways!!!! Tim in alasks!! :-)

Great review Ryan! Have you ever done a benchmark using virtual PCs? It would be interesting to put 32gb of ram in one of these systems and see how many virtual PC's you could effectively run. Throw different loads on each of the machines and see what brings it to knees.